The 306 Greatest Books #54 - Walden

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Walden by Henry David Thoreau. This book can be found on the Sybervision and My Book Lists.

While most of the books on my lists are strictly fiction, there are a few that delve into other aspects of history such as scientific and philosophical works. Walden was my first dip into these other, more intimidating, works of literature. And when I started this book I was expecting a rather long, dry, dull book, but in the end, I was pleasantly surprised. Although this is listed as a philosophy book, it reminded me much more like an amateur scientist exploring the world and describing what he sees. Walden is written in a language that is poetic and enjoyable to read where Thoreau will often comment on aspects of his society that are still prevalent today; including helping the needy and people living just to make money. The premise of the book is that Thoreau wanted to live outside of society, with no reliance on it and in the end he succeeded, for the most part. This work impacted me so much that a line within the story has become my email tag since reading it:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." 

I feel that for an educational experience this book should definitely be on everyone's list.

The 306 Greatest Books #53 - Emma

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Emma by Jane Austen. This book can be found on the Observer and BBC Book Lists.

Coming into Emma with a fairly large preconceived notion about the Austen/Bronte books of the time, I was pleasantly surprised and this book was actually better than I was expecting. Once I got passed Austen's round-about way of speaking the book rather intrigued me. The story is about a female in her early twenties among the upper class social scene of rural England. She had vowed to never marry in order to not stress her father. Instead of indulging in her own love-life, she then tries to hook up her friend Harriet. The problem comes when Emma realizes that she is really bad at playing match-maker and eventually causes more problems than if she had just left everything alone. The story wraps up very nicely in a happily-ever-after ending. My biggest complaint of the story is that the language used made the book very difficult to follow at times and Austen could have definitely used "by the bye" far less. Although I enjoyed it, I do not recommend it, especially compared to Austen's much better and more famous Pride and Prejudice. 

Life Update - The Blizzard of '06

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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The Blizzard of '06

That's right, maybe a month too late but here is my recap of the blizzard of 06'. Declared a National Disaster by FEMA and commented on many to be worse than Katrina. OK, don't get me wrong. I am not stating this was worse than Katrina, or even close. But it was pretty bad. We lost power for a week and some didn't get back power for at least a week and a half. Our internet service and cable took a little longer to come back.

Here are some pictures:

Actually during the storm. Hard to take pictures at night in a snowstorm.

The cars were under the snow, at least 2 feet fell that night.

Our backyard, the morning after. The reason that most of the region lost power was due to the wet heavy snow taking down the branches on the power lines. You can see the branches ripped out, broken and laying in the snow drifts. The table was tipped over the prevent it from breaking.

Yup, no power means no microwave, no oven, no heat, no lights. Only candles, hot water (thank you gas) and a stove (again, thank you gas). So after deciding we needed to get rid of all our food and quick it became hot dog night on the grill.

The 306 Greatest Books #52 - The Brothers Karamazov

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Brothers Karamazov by Fydor Dostoyevsky. This book can be found on the Sybervision, Norwegian, and Observer Book Lists.

After reading Crime and Punishment I became a big fan of Dostoyevsky, an I found that this book read a lot like Crime and Punishment, which is the reason why I liked it so much. I probably would put this on my personal must read list but Crime and Punishment is already on the list and I thought that Crime and Punishment was a much better book. Overall I though the book was extremely well written, but long (~800 pages) and I did not fully understand the point of the epilogue. A good translation can make or break a story and I have found over time that Russian literature has a tendency to translate very well into English. The Brothers Karamazov is about 3 (maybe 4) brothers all from the same father but different mothers. All of them have widely varied personalities ranging from borderline psychotic to deeply religious to the non-religious academic. The story culminates in a murder that we as the reader know the brother did not commit but he is put on trial for. I like the way the story was written, with us knowing more than the people in the trial and the ending for the most part made sense; again except for the epilogue. So if you are in the mood for a long but relatively uncomplicated read, I recommend this one.

Hovercraft - Update

Note - This was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

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Hovercraft Update

So this is how the hovercraft looks now. It is slowly coming along (ok very slowly) but it actually has the shape of a boat now. I am super happy with how this is coming out. Unfortunately I hurt my back in the last week working on the stringers (the things hold the main ribs together) so work has progressed actually slower than before. If you want to check out how the rest of the hovercraft came up to this point go to my website here:

http://dinojim.com/AboutMe/hovercraftframe.html